This
was the dummy stage to throw them off the scent!!! me and Nik took
the pyramid around to the west gate and left it there with a load
of scaffolding and instructions. As you can see the PA crew had
a go at erecting the pyramid but lack of time and improvisation
led to a rather unorthordox version.Because I was involved with
the original planning group that set up the greenham womens peace
camp festival, I was also busy running the other main stage as well
with the groups I had booked for the tibetans marquee with other
PA and lighting and jenny on the other side of the base.
This photo is great because afterwards when we went to collect the
scaffolding boards and pyramid it was all deconstructed and I never
had time to see it at this stage. They obviously made a real hash
of my instructions, je je je je je je je :-)
Big Steve

(Pyramid
tent stagemanager )

The
Greenham Common Womens Peace camp was a major thorn in the side of the Thatcher
Government throughout the 1980s . The camp, established in 1981, was situated
outside the Greenham Common Airbase ,the aim was to protest peacefully against
the government plans to install nuclear warhead equipped Cruise missiles supplied
by the US .

Following
the Stonehenge free festival in June 1982, a" Peace convoy" of over
100 vehicles made the decision to join the women as a gesture of solidarity.
The free festival proved to be a moveable feast, establishing itself wherever
its participants were- much to the consternation of the authorities......

Peace
Convoy Rolls Over Cruise Missile Site.

JULY
1982 .

This
summer saw some of the largest free festivals in Britain since the early
1970s , when a military style dawn attack at the Windsor free festival
by the notorious Thames Valley Police force signalled the event of an
official hard line against such anarchistic manifestations. Some 500
police were able to attack and destroy the remnants of a 30,000 strong
crowd, making 700 arrests. But times have changed and the authorities
must content themselves with a policy of containment . In 1981, when
two people were arrested by the police at Stonehenge, they were freed
by a large crowd of people ( many of them alerted from the main festival
area by CB radio ) The mobile police HQ was trashed when kids let loose
with catapult fire . This was one of the first flare ups in a summer
which would see by its end molotovs and plastic bullets flying and riots
across Britain from Bogside to Tunbridge Wells in the marmalade and
toast belt-one of the peachiest of the Tory Blue strongholds.

At Stonehenge 82 the main rule
of law seemed to be the illusion that there was none - except your own ."
You are now entering a liberated zone" -
read a big sign on the gate" Its never too late
to enjoy your childhood "
Inside was a massive encampment . At its peak , on the summer solstice , when
the sun slices precisely through the stones at dawn, there were more than
50,000 souls , a tent city, a rabble army encampment , a crazy circus - full
of contradictions - open drug dealing next to natural childbirth ... a liberated
zone , with capitalism going strong .. hells angles smashing a bottle in someone's
face and a baby being born ( the mother almost dying )in a tipi - at least
one death.
"I'm glad my daughter isnt here" , said the man in charge
of police operations . In fact though uniformed police did not venture on
site in large numbers, plainclothesmen were definitely at work , as many who
were picked up after they left the site found to their acute discomfort.

1982.
Festival summer. In Britain during the
summer it is possible to start in early June and be at or on the way
to a festival till late September's Psylocibin Celebration in Wales.
Thatchers cabinet is even known to consider such events a useful safety
valve after last years riots. With employment unabated ,
more and more "marginal people" have opted for the traditional
remedy of Britain's underclasses and take up the festival trail , from
Stonehenge through various Peace gatherings, more commercial rock festivals
and even a festival on the estate of trendy lord ( just like in feudal
times ) all combining the mercantile aspects of traditional country
fairs with new age politics and New Wave ballyhoo .

It
was only natural that a caravan or convoy formed up out of the buses vans
and other vehicles of the festival hardcore , the Rainbow people who live
in tipis , or Ukrainian Tibetan Mountain Troupe
who travel in buses all year and kept on picking up more and more recruits.
One immediate advantage was an obvious rule of strength in numbers - the
local constabulary through which this totally illegal juggernaut now rolled
were usually only too happy to see it roll on by - constrained by the fact
that the local gaols have only a few places to spare.

After the summer solstice , through some arcane internal
consensus , participants in the convoy decided to join the full weight
of their forces with the Women's Peace camp with had been going for
nine months just outside the main gate of the US base at Greenham common
, demanding the halt of the installation of US cruise missiles . The
convoy left Stonehenge some 100 vehicles strong , for the first time
calling itself the Peace Convoy , bound for one of the largest military
bases in Britain . Ahead of them lay a full blown confrontation in progress
, where the authorities were already completely absorbed in ridding
the area of the three dozen or so women of the Peace Vigil.

Above-
The Peace Convoy leaves Stonehenge, bound for Greenham Common.

During
the nine arduous months of the Vigil, relations between the women and the
local municipal council had deteriorated into bitter acrimony , long before
the Peace Convoy was even formed . Parliament having passed legislation
enabling the council to oust such squatters from village commons- 'said
council was now embroiled with the Vigilers in court , doing just that.
The Vigil women claimed on documentation proving that their site was on
private land and that they had permission to be there.

Not
only that, their tenacity had inspired a dozen or so other peace
Camps at military bases all over Britain , shifting the focus of
the disarmament movement from the big one shot peace demos in London
to continuous protests outside the bases . this brought the issue
home to local inhabitants, workmen and servicemen who every day
had to walk by protests. The government was scarcely ready to have
this relatively tiny encampment massively reinforced with the unpredictable
energy of several thousand people already spaced out by two weeks
at Stonehenge. The preventative measures hastily improvised by the
coppers were inevitably doomed to failure. Forewarned by their spies
of the Convoys destination , they set up a false detour at a traffic
circle , only to have the great exhaust belching caravan swoop by,
with the bobbies pointing frantically in the wrong direction .

AboveCorrina and the Androids of Mu
perform in the Tibetan Ukranian Mountain Troupe tent at Greenham
Common Festival of Life , March 81.